The Last Station

It's entirely understandable why the revered Leo Tolstoy wishes to spend his final days in peace and quiet. His wife and his acolytes are warring over the possibility of a new will with both sides enlisting others to both support their cause and spy on the other side. Chertkov, the Tolstoyan, uses surreptitious methods (which at least are mostly quiet) whereas Sofya tends towards the loudly melodramatic. Who's right? The man who wants the copyright of Tolstoy's works to be given to the Russian people? Or the wife who's trying to protect her family? The film wisely doesn't take sides but it can certainly see the follies of both. It's all so lively that you don't really notice just how little actually happens or how much dialogue there is. It even makes a virtue of that bugbear of heritage cinema: the act of writing. Tolstoy is surrounded by people who write down everything that happens - for posterity, for evidence against the enemy - while he himself conspicuously isn't seen writing (the one occasion we see him with pen in hand he's rudely interrupted by Sofya) Sofya might be increasingly exasperated by the presence of notebooks but it doesn't stop her from giving Bulgakov a diary so that *he* can record events. In fact, she's doing exactly the same as her arch enemy Chertkov. Bulgakov is caught in the middle of this battle and traverses the opposing philosophies during the course of the film. An irreverent streak brings characters vividly to life: Tolstoy is wryly aware that he doesn't live up to the lofty ideals of the movement established in his name; Sofya isn't above clambering over balconies to eavesdrop. And all in the public eye of the media who camp outside the Tolstoys' estate and later flock to the railway station en masse. It might be early 20th century Russia but there's an awful lot that's totally recognisable.